About

Super PACS! The Game of Politics About the Game of Politics

$13,434

pledged of $12,000 goal

385

backers

Super PACS: The Game of Politics About the Game of Politics is a card game that satirizes the relationship between money, votes, and power in a democracy. Designed by Brandon Patton and André Pereira, it takes place in a fictional country called Humerica. Each player controls an unattractive, power-hungry leader and tries to assemble a coalition of supporters by any means necessary, be it money, persuasion, treachery, or by wielding their leader's superpower. Each faction that joins your side can also be exploited in a unique way to gain an advantage, and it is from the interactions between these "exploits" that the game's complexity and hilarity springs forth.

Players: 2-4Duration: 30-60 minutes (15 min per player)Age: 14+

Each player gets a unique leader at the start of the game with a unique superpower. Over the course of ten rounds, you "exploit" or "sneak" faction cards onto the table. Exploiting a faction gives you a powerful effect - each card is different! Once on the table, the factions add votes, wealth and power to your coalition, so you can win elections, fundraise, interfere with your opponents, and move powerful tokens onto your leader.

Our cartoonists churned out over 100 illustrations! It's like a greatest hits compilation of the most "special" interest groups of all time:

WHO ARE YOU GUYS?

André and Brandon met in New Haven, CT. André was a roboticist post-doc at Yale. Brandon was designing educational games about medicine and performing around the country with MC Frontalot. When André and Brandon met, André showed Brandon a game he had contributed to called Here Comes the Troika, published by TableTip Games, that ridicules politics in Europe. Brandon loved it, and declared "we have to make a game about American politics!" André, knowing Brandon would take the bait, shook his head sadly. "If only we knew an American game designer obsessed with politics." They started working on the game in December of 2014.

Tragically, the game about American politics and American politicians never came to be. But they did manage to create a game set in a completely fictional country where any similarities to American politics and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental! So there's that. Cough cough hack spit ptooey.

Risks and challenges

We did all of our design work in 2015 and the game only needs a few remaining tweaks and a final rulebook layout (which we can complete while the campaign is running) and then we're ready to send it out. We anticipate mailing out copies before the end of summer. It's important to us that everybody gets to play this game during 2016, while the election is dominating the news cycle!
That said, we have already had some delays due to sickness, and to moving for a new job. So, unforeseen events could happen. But Brandon has worked on two successful Kickstarters already, and has a good sense of what it entails, and our allies at TableTip (the guys who did "Here Comes the Troika") have self-published three other card games before and already have manufacturing contacts and a good sense of final costs and timeline. Once the campaign ends, and we have enough to pay manufacturing costs, we're ready to go!